MOVIE: Rio (2011)

by benmweilertNo Comments
RioYear: 2011Rating: GLength: 96 minutes / 1.67 hours When Rio (2011) came out, I felt it was pushed into so many aspects of popular culture that 20th Century Fox Animation was trying to make it a hit by sheer cross-branding. Heck, there was even an entire Angry Birds game made for mobile phones that was filled with plot from the movie. Re-watching this film more than a decade later made me realize how generic this movie truly is. That it had so many trope similarities to Fox Animation’s Epic (2013) which came out a few years later, shows how formulaic these movies are. It seems every movie dealing with rare animals always has some kind of poacher as the villain. Finding Nemo (2003) did this. Madagascar 3 (2012) did this. Migration (2023) did this. Additionally, most movies set in “foreign” locales play up their cultural touchstones as a strong bit of advertising to the tourists who might watch the movie (or at...
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MOVIE: Get Smart (2008)

by benmweilertNo Comments
Get Smart Year: 2008 Rating: PG-13 Length: 110 minutes / 1.83 hours While film adaptations of television shows aren't new, Get Smart (2008) was certainly in the era when the idea to do so had become popular (even if we're still trying to forget Bewitched (2005)). What's nice about Get Smart is that it falls into that "self-aware" category, mainly because the source material (i.e. the 1960's TV show of the same name) was already self-aware when it came to the "spy" genre made popular by James Bond. Of course, it's no wonder that the king of parody, Mel Brooks was involved in both the TV show and this film adaptation. Of course, while the humor was more bathroom-oriented than witty, many of Carell's lines played off of the amusing nature of taking everything literally. Also, the bumbling nature of his new field agent character, Maxwell Smart, was certainly entertaining (as it is clearly Carell's forté), even if it was abandoned at times to advance the plot through...
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